


quoth the raven, nevermore

by alchemystique



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 14:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4628307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemystique/pseuds/alchemystique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re like a magpie, man, where do you even find this stuff?” Glenn is the only one who ever really comments on it, but Beth finds him later, when he’s brooding away from the group. He doesn’t know why he does it, exactly, only he remembers being like this as a kid, bringing home pretty rocks and bouquets of weeds to his Ma, remembers the smile that lit her face even though it was all garbage. Remembers the line of gifts on her bedside table, before things got real bad. </p><p>- Daryl likes to give out trinkets. It's not a thing. Mostly it's not a thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	quoth the raven, nevermore

**Author's Note:**

> an: This was supposed to be a short little thing that was mostly just cute, because I needed a distraction from the monster fic that is consuming my soul. But then Daryl got introspective and I got angsty.
> 
> Title is from The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, and I’ll just leave you with this line, where Poe gets emo about his lost love (because that’s not familiar to any of this at all):
> 
> Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
> 
> And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. 
> 
> Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow 
> 
> From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
> 
> For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Nameless here for evermore.

He doesn’t really notice he’s doin’ it ‘til someone mentions it. They’re on a run - Lori’s showin’ enough for it to be worrisome, at this point, and the group is split between those they need to watch each others backs while they scavange and those that can take care of everyone else. 

He’s halfway down a picked through aisle at the grocery store when his eye catches on the hair bands - nothin’ he ever woulda paid mind to a few years ago, but for some reason he pauses, ignoring Glenn further down the aisle trying to be sneaky about the box of rubbers that miraculously still seems to be there. 

Remembers the way Hershel’s youngest had tugged at her hair in frustration when it snagged on a branch or somethin’, middle of them haulin’ ass outtta dodge behind a herd of Walkers. Remembers the flush on her face when he’d whipped out his knife to slice her lose. She hadn’t fought it, like he mighta expected outta her, just tilted her head down, so he couldn’t see her face as he cut through the thick strands, hadn’t said a word as he freed her, nudged her forward after the group that hadn’t even noticed them fall behind. 

They didn’t talk much, those months out on the road. None of ‘em, really. She didn’t thank him, a fact he would remain grateful for for a long fuckin’ time - like she knew he wouldn’t take it well, like she understood it’d make him uncomfortable. 

Remembers the fuss Maggie’d kicked up when they finally found a safe place to rest and her sisters first moment of calm was to tell them all she wanted to chop it off. Her hair.

Not like he cared a damn what she did with her damn hair, as long as he wasn’t slicing chunks out of it for the rest of their lives just to keep her from gettin’ snarled in fences and shit. But even Hershel had seemed upset by the thought, like it was a fuckin’ limb she was threatening to cut off (his mind falls to that rooftop in Atlanta for just a second too long). Just hair. 

Still, she hadn’t done it, and in the weeks since then he’s watched her strugglin’ with it. It’s not like she’s the only damn thing he ever looks at, but he’s an observant motherfucker, for better or worse, and he notices things. 

Things like the growing distance between Lori and her family, things like Carl’s slow decent into the dark corners they all worked so hard to keep him away from, things like the way Hershel looks at his daughters (He hasn’t known the man long, but he likes him, respects him, maybe even cares about him in a way he’d never expected. It’s not like Rick, who has let him slide pretty easily into the spot Shane had once held - and Jesus, they’re all fucked six ways from Sunday, there’s so much _shit_  they haven’t had time to wrap their heads around - but there’s a kindness and a strength in Hershel he’s always been too out of it to notice before. Kinda father a man would hope to be. Kinda man someone might hope to be. If they thought about that kinda thing.)

Things like Beth strugglin’ with her damn hair every day as she tries to find any damn thing to tame it.

He grabs two packs of the things and shoves the into a side pocket as they keep workin’ their way through the leftovers in the store. 

When he tosses them at a startled Beth that afternoon she catches them midair while she’s still lookin’ at him like he’s grown a second head. (Probably ‘cause he’d practically snarled her name, and hell, probably also ‘cause he’s never actually said her name aloud, neither. But they’ve been together a while at this point. They’re not a huge fuckin’ group. He knows her goddamn name. Even if he mostly prefers ‘girl’ - he still thinks of her as Beth, most the time, in his head. When he’s thinking about everyone.).

“What is this?”  


Daryl stares her down a moment. “The fuck do I know what they’re called? Shit for your hair.”

“Oh.”   


Her face goes pink again as she ducks her head to stare at them - bright, rainbow colors all laid out in neat rows. They look strange in her hands. They shouldn’t, but they do, all bright and shiny and new against the neutral of her outfit. 

“Better’n Maggie griping at you not to cut it every time she gets a look at it.”  


She hums. Glances at him through her lashes. Smiles, a bit, just a tilt to one corner of her mouth.

Doesn’t thank him. 

He’s still grateful for that.

\------

Hershel and Maggie let her go when they canvas a strip of stores along an empty Main Street in podunk nowhere. He’s surprised, mostly, and maybe a little extra careful about clearing the stores before they go in, but it’s good. That she’s gettin’ the practice in. That she wants to. The knife she borrowed is heavy in her hand, and he’s probably bein’ an asshole about how much he watches her outta the corner of his eye, but he’s fuckin’ tired of losing people to dumb mistakes and he’ll be damned if he lets this girl die in a souvenir shop fifty miles from the destruction of her childhood home. 

He catches her starin’ at a leather bound book while he’s stuffing expired jerky packs into his bag, and she rolls her shoulders in when he stops to look at her, eyes darting away from the line of journals. 

“What, you ain’t got enough money for it or somethin’?”  


She seems surprised by his voice, by the words, by the gentle humor he instills in them. He guesses he probably surprises them all the goddamn time. “No, it’s just - it’s silly. Don’t need it.”

He gets it, he does. They’ve been livin’ hand to mouth for months now, barely scrapin’ enough food together to keep them from tumblin’ off the road in a strong wind. They’ve given up a lotta things they don’t _need_. 

“Got room in my pack. ‘f yours is too full.”   


She shakes her head. Is already halfway down the aisle again, lookin’ for necessities. 

He waits til she’s around the corner, stuffs two of them into a pocket. Grabs a handful of stupid as fuck lookin’ pens and shoves them in there too.

Just cause they don’t need ‘em doesn’t mean they gotta live like vultures.

\------

They’re all freezin’ their asses off, and Daryl had volunteered for first watch just cause it meant he could pace back and forth to keep himself from gettin’ as cold as everyone else seems to be, huddled up together like a group of teenage girls after a long night of giggling. Only the one teenager they actually have is curled out by herself on the outside, clutching at her blanket and staring up at the moldy ceiling like it’s got the answers to all the universes questions. 

She’s a quiet thing, doesn’t talk much, never complains about a damn thing. Not once in the months they’ve been wandering in circles, and he definitely hadn’t expected that outta her. Daryl’s pretty sure _he_ talks more than Beth Greene. 

He can tell from across the room, even in the near darkness, that she’s shiverin’. 

It takes him about five minutes of listening to her try not to let her teeth chatter before he sighs, reaching behind his back to pull the old horse blanket he’d cut a hole through the middle of up over his head. 

It’s six and a half steps to reach her, and she freezes at the sound of his footsteps, eyes snapping shut like she means to make him believe she’s both asleep and comfortable. He stifles a snort.

But it makes it easier to lay the thing across her, the both of ‘em pretending she’s asleep. Don’t have to talk, or look at each other. No argument involved in which one of ‘em will be colder. Just a gentle swish of fabric and the urge to tug the ends up over her shoulders and tuck it under her chin. He fights that urge. Stands. Turns back to his spot on the far wall. 

After a few minutes he can hear her tugging the thing up a bit, and it’s dark enough, quiet enough, that he shakes his head and smiles.

He finds it folded neatly next to his pack when he wakes up the next morning. She never says a word about it. 

Daryl doesn’t mind.

\------

It’s not just Hershel’s girl. It’s not. He finds clothes for Carl, sometimes, too small to fit any of them but just the right size that Carl won’t grow out of them in a week like he seems to be doing all the time now. Kids growin’ like a damn weed, he’ll be taller than Daryl soon enough, and isn’t that a thought. Kid growin’ up at the end of the world. 

(Keeps his thoughts to himself on that. They got a baby ‘bout to enter this world too, and if it survives they’re all gonna have to come to terms with that. Ain’t a single one of them wouldn’t lay down their lives for the bump of Lori’s belly. He can’t imagine what they’ll be willing to do when that thing has eyes and a mouth and can reach for them all.)

He’ll find things, sometimes, makes him think of one of ‘em, and he’s not always the best at giving them away once he finds them, but he’s gettin’ there. Growin’ as a person, or something. 

“You’re like a magpie, man, where do you even find this stuff?” Glenn is the only one who ever really comments on it, but Beth finds him later, when he’s brooding away from the group. He doesn’t know why he does it, exactly, only he remembers being like this as a kid, bringing home pretty rocks and bouquets of weeds to his Ma, remembers the smile that lit her face even though it was all garbage. Remembers the line of gifts on her bedside table, before things got real bad.  


“You’re more like a raven,” she tells him without preamble, sitting down across from him, fingers digging into the grass as she curls her long legs up to her chest.   


“Ain’t no bird,” he tells her. Gruffer than he meant, mostly. He gets defensive, sometimes.  


“What’s with the wings, then?” she answers back, small smile lighting her face, and he feels like she’s staring into his soul. Like she’s seein’ things he hid from everyone including himself a long ass time ago. They sit in silence awhile, Beth smiling, Daryl avoiding eye contact. “They do that, you know? Find little trinkets. I read a story once about a murder of ‘em used to bring beads and coins and things to a little girl who’d made friends with them. They remembered her. Figured she’d like the things they found. Kept on bringin’ them to her all the time. She took care of them, and they wanted to show their appreciation.”

He shuffles, uncomfortably aware that she knows him a whole hell of a lot better than he thought. 

“You’re a good man, Daryl Dixon,” she tells him, and he wants to fold in on himself and cry for about a thousand years. He can feel his hand shaking where he’s got it clenched in a fist by his side.   


“I ain’t.”  


She doesn’t argue with him, just stares at him for a long moment. Hums, low in her throat, like she wants him to know no one actually believes that even if she doesn’t say so. 

“You still got that journal hidden in your bag?” she finally asks, and Daryl’s gaze snaps to hers. There’s something open in her gaze - no judgment, no questions, just an honest curiosity.   


He shrugs. Chews at the inside of his cheek. “I’unno.”

When she stands she unfurls herself like a flower greeting the morning sun. He watches it, mesmerized, and doesn’t flinch when her hand ghosts over his shoulder as she moves past him towards the treeline. 

\------

“You’re a good man, Daryl.”  


He does flinch away from this one. He’s blown Hershel up in his head as this saintly old man with a heart of gold, and even though he knows he ain’t that, it’s not easy to take those words without a fight. He isn’t. Never was, never will be. Seen too much. Done too much. Fucked it up every time he tried to fit those words.

“Sit down with me a second and let me talk at you.”  


Daryl doesn’t do it without a fight, but eventually Hershel stares at him long enough he knows he’s not gettin’ out of it. 

Slumps to the floor of the warehouse they’re in, stares at the dirt under his fingernails. 

“I know you don’t think you’re part of this - not completely. But we need you. We always have and you’ve never shied from that. Never complained. Never sought a way out. Never asked for anything in return.”   


“You’d be fine without me.”  


Hershel hums. “Maybe. Maybe not. But we want you here. You’re one of us.” His smile is wry. “I’m afraid to tell you this, but I think you might be stuck with us, now.”

Daryl rolls his tongue over his teeth, mulls over the words for a while. It’s not right, exactly, and his death wouldn’t make or break this group. Even though they seem to think different, it wouldn’t. But it’s not the worst thing in the world to hope he might be at least a bit important to them. Like they all are to him.

“Ain’t so bad. Had worse.”  


Hershel laughs as he claps Daryls shoulder. 

\------

Carol laughs at him when he tucks a little flower into the spot between the top of her ear and her scalp. “We goin’ steady now?”

“Stop,” he tells her, fighting a blush. He likes being around Carol. It’s easy. She teases him, he comforts her in whatever gruff way he can. They’ve seen each others scars. The real ones and the ones they tuck away from the world. He doesn’t really think about women the way the rest of the world always seems to. Knows there’s something different about the way he interacts with them. Doesn’t expect the kinds of things most men probably do, when they get close to a woman.  


Carol, if he had to explain it, is something like a friend, a real one, and not just someone who knew his name and face and what kinda beer he drank. 

“Well good. I didn’t want to have to fight anyone for your changed affections.”  


He scuffs at the ground as they continue to walk, confused by the comment. He thinks maybe if he doesn’t respond he won’t have to keep thinking about what it meant.

“You’ve got no clue what you’re doin’ with these people, do you?”  


The shrug shakes his whole torso. It’s not like he ever had much practice being a part of a family. Not one like this.

“Hershel thinks you’ve got a soft spot for Beth.”  


If his head could disconnect from his neck, the way he snaps his head up surely woulda done it. 

“Oh, calm down, loverboy. He knows nothing’s going on. But you might wanna take a moment for yourself and sort out your thoughts before something hits you that you weren’t expecting.”  


“Like what?”  


She gives him a smile that’s part knowing, part sympathetic. Like she knows more about his own brain than he does.

She probably does. It’s a fuckin’ mess in there.

“You ever been in love, Daryl?”  


“The fuck does that have to do with anything?” The answer is no. Unequivocally no. He’d loved his ma, loved his brother, he knows that, but even that had always been curled up in disappointment and pain. Doesn’t really get the whole idea - lettin’ your world circle so completely around another person.   


He’s seen the way its eaten up at Rick and Lori, hollowed them out from the inside. 

“Nothin’. It’s got nothing to do with anything.”  


\------

He finds the little headband in an abandoned house tucked away into the woods, five miles out from the prison. Something in him keens as he curls it up against his palm. 

He’s thought a lot about that question Carol asked him. Thinks maybe the answer is a little different. 

Knows the moment he’d seen that baby girl, tucked her up in his arms, watched her latch her lips around the nipple of that bottle - knows what love feels like. It’s terrifying, gut wrenching, makes him uncomfortable and itchy, makes his heart clench and his knees buckle and every other stupid fucking thing he’s ever heard about love. 

It’s the best feeling he’s ever had.

He sneaks in late that night, finds Beth humming as the little girl settles into something like sleep. 

He’d never wanted kids. Not after bein’ one himself. But here, with the world gone to shit and the dead walking, with so much death and loss around them, he sees Judith Grimes reach out tiny fingers to wrap around the braid in Beth’s hair and he feels this overwhelming sense of _rightness_. 

“You find anything useful?” Beth asks him, and he wonders at it, at her takin’ on this kid like it’s her own. Wonders if it’s because she finally feels like she’s doin’ something for the group other than clinging on.   


He gets the urge to tell her she’d kept them all sane out on the road, but he doesn’t. 

“Nah.” He’d found some more clothes, a few odds and ends the group had been asking about. Not much. The headband is wrapped around his knuckles and it feels like he’s holding the Holy Grail.  


“Any trouble?”  


Daryl shakes his head. Wants desperately to reach out and run his dirty hands over the downy hair on top of Judi’s head. 

“You just come by for some girl talk, then?” She’s smiling, teasing, and he’s not sure how he feels about that. About all of these people treating him like he’s a part of their life now. Like it’s okay to poke at him. Cause he’s one of them.   


Mostly he thinks he could get used to it.

“Found this. I guess she probably don’t need it, yet, but...” She studies the pink band wrapped around his fingers, ducking her head away from him so he can’t quite read her expression.  


Sometimes Daryl wonders if they get as frustrated with him when he does that. 

“It’s cute.”  


Outta nowhere he feels the response bubbling up, and bites his lip to keep from saying it. _You’re_ cute, all petulant and snappy.   


Her fingers are soft as she unfurls it from around his palm, barely touching but enough that he wonders how the hell she keeps them that way. She tucks the thing carefully into her own hand, long fingers holding it wide to slip over top of Judith’s head.

Beth shoots him a look when Judith stirs, a grin almost wide enough to show teeth and something like a challenge in her eye. “Uncle Daryl’s just a big ole softie, Judith. He can grumble and grunt all he wants but you an’ me? We know the truth. Don’t we?” 

Judith gurgles like it’s the most amusing thing she’s ever heard. It’s a damn joke, is what it is.

“Whatever,” he mutters, and he turns away, suddenly uncomfortable in this space that is so clearly Beth’s.   


He stays awake, up in his perch, listening to Beth’s soft singing, until that and the sound of the groups soft snore sends him into a doze.

\------

He never finds a good time to give the journals to her. Not ‘til the prison, anyway.    


But they settle in. Start taking on people. Rick starts _farming_ , and they set up a council to keep the peace with the Woodbury folk, and Daryl ends up bein’ the face of the whole damn operation. Takin’ people in when he finds them. Bringing them food. Teachin’ them how to take care of themselves. 

It’s a fucking joke. 

But he’s good at it. It surprises him more than it surprises anyone else - he’s slowly realizing he’s the only damn one of them that doesn’t know Daryl Dixon all that well. 

He finds them stuffed at the bottom of his pack on a run with the new kid - Zach, and Christ if there was ever a person who could actually talk Daryl’s ear off it’d be Zach. The covers are bent a bit, a few pages showing wear and tear, but he yanks them out and digs for the pens that have got to be rattlin’ around in there too. 

Hands them off to Zach when the kid gives him a raised eyebrow. “You know Beth, right?”

“What, Judith’s mom?”

Daryl blinks. He forgets, sometimes, that the rest of the world doesn’t know the groups goddamn life story. “She ain’t her mom.”

“Oh.” There’s a sudden gleam in his eye that Daryl finds sort of suspicious, but he lets it slide. “Huh.”

“Go drop those off for her, wouldja?”  


He can’t quite vocalize it, but he’s hoping that maybe by now she’s forgotten that run she made with him. Forgot the time she ribbed him for holding on to them, like she knew he’d stuffed them in his pack. 

Zach takes off a moment later, humming something under his breath, and Daryl kinda feels like shit ten minutes later. Like he shoulda given her them himself. 

That night he watches across the commons as Zach tilts his head towards Beth’s ear, watches as her smile slices across her face in the firelight. He probably shoulda seen that coming. Girl like her, guy like Zach. Probably a match made in heaven, even if he appreciates the suspicious look Hershel is shooting their way. 

Watches until her eyes drift up, and then his gaze darts down to this bowl of stew he’s been pretending to eat all night. 

He gets a good five minutes of staring at it before the shadow looms in front of him. “Thanks for the pens.”

He grunts. Looks up at her through his hair. 

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep your secret. Me and Judi won’t tell a soul.”  


“Fuck off,” he says, but the words sound kinda affectionate even to his own ears.  


“I won’t even write about it in my new journal. Just in case, you know.”  


“Get outta my damn hair, girl,” he tells her, but he knows he’s at least smiling at her. She grins back.  


“Yes sir, Mister Dixon.”  


He shakes his head as he watches her go, and is only mildly alarmed when he catches Hershel’s gaze with the knowledge that he’d seen the whole exchange. Hershel just gives him a firm nod and turns back to his meal.

\-----

_[“You ever been in love?”_  


_Yes. ]_

_“I never been in love before,” she whispers in his dreams, on those rare nights when he doesn’t see the back of her head bursting out and her body crumpling to the floor.  
_

_She holds his gaze, firm eyes holding steady, and he wants to sling his skin free from his bones, set himself on fire and be reborn in the ashes. She smiles when he drinks._

_She takes a drink of her own._


End file.
